I’m a little foggy on how it all unfolded, but there’s a scene in an old episode of Frasier in which the lovably pretentious Frasier Crane (played by Kelsey Grammer) complains to his blue collar, ex-cop father, Martin (John Mahoney) about all of the things that drive him crazy and make life unbearable. The exact annoyances I can’t remember, but they probably had something to do with imbeciles who can’t correctly pronounce the name of his favorite opera, someone dreadfully fouling up his $8 cappuccino order, or a sommelier who didn’t live up to expectations – you know, the everyday stuff. Anyway, when Frazier finishes his whiny rant, Martin retorts with something to the affect of, “Well, aren’t you a little hothouse orchid!”

I never thought I’d end up relating one of my favorite shows to IT equipment, but here it goes: network components are just as much hothouse orchids as our gent Frasier is. They may not snub and whine and spend way too much at the haberdashery, but man, are they finicky – especially when it comes to temperature and humidity. Let servers get too hot, or mess with the ambient humidity too much, and they start spazzing out or shut down altogether. Talk about electronics that need constant babysitting!

But there’s not really a choice: communication must go on, so the equipment that makes it possible must be coddled. But now there’s an easier way, one that gives you a break from constantly monitoring the thermostat and humidity levels. Meet Geist’s Compact Environmental Monitor, an extremely helpful device that mounts in any data center or server enclosure, and keeps tabs on all the vitals for you… while you spend your time on better things.

Here’s how it works: you install the environmental monitor, and then set a few predetermined maximum and/or minimum thresholds, or cutoff points. If the temperature or humidity go above or below the parameters you’ve set, the monitor automatically sends you an alert via e-mail, so that you can tend to the problem at hand. This is all thanks to a PoE web interface that provides the Internet connection and the power – you don’t even need to plug it into a separate electrical outlet.